basement trust

i slide through dust, always hanging on your words, the ones i spoke earlier are scattered into corners and brushed down the stairs, so it's easy for me to see absolutely nothing there, even if i wanted to look. just ghostly traces of dust trailing all the way here. you mean, when the washing and cleaning was still going. and the roof was still there. i don't trust this room, it's been cleaned too many times, but of what? i think it was a car factory, but all transport has left us here, too early to get away. i found you breathing heavily into the basement floor. what was there apart from the dust? a tunnel further? sliding away, you can't hold onto it. it could be anything that was once too close for comfort.

hiding by the chair with the velvet connection still sticking out its behind. a funfair memory invades your room and won't let you go, even in this heat, even when i touched you so simply i couldn't understand. when you follow it through it won't be so bad. long gone whispering over gentle acoustic shapes. the legs of the chair walk all over your imaginary body, long spindly legs, leading you to a clearing where the band starts playing immediately. i knew it would be right for you, right here. but it's not what i wanted for you, my child. look at your eyes, it won't be gone for long. before another master ascends. sit down


the trust i invested never paid off, but i just couldn't stop it. as the stairs descend, rolling down into infinity, i need to raise my face a bit to see clearly through the little slits. madness boils over, as you show me little trickles of blood, a hairy chest, a nipple, everything erased immediately as the magic marker strikes contact. there's an empty stage where the signs live, usually tucked away in boxes. secrets wander aimlessly until a contact point is hit. this i where we live.

you've got to follow the smells first. there's more to it than you think. as if you could jump out of the box and say it and then everything would be alright. i trail behind a bad box and slide into some bones salad, colours flash, and the ghost train runs all over me. i've left out all the bad marks and everything is spring green blossom. until it collapses back into the old basement.

valuable downtime deleted, so ghosts can come closer. i need to prepare for this somehow, but it's too loose and too close in the foreground. dragging it all over the ground like a deranged guitar motive. getting scratchy on the wrong end, as the chorus hoovers you up. my delayed reaction will speed into your mouth. we will band together before the music cuts out. it's in the basement, you know. you need to go there too. we could do it then.

sour edges creeping in. i told you i was stuck in a corridor. blessing different doors, all leading to a square from which you exit. i'm stuck where this went, and i think i need to reload now. go back down the stairs again, learn to trust again. i feel the ghosts are waiting, but it's not my fault. i just played some music on the tube. i went along where they sung and off i went, speeding through the corridors. i want to say something maybe. can i see you now? where are you hiding? is this screen not blank and new enough for you? is there a history to this?

the blade dances on the chest. when they found you they said they had no choice. your hood doesn't fit, obviously, but there's nothing i can do about that now. your speech is slurred. i can't hear you. i'm trying to record you, after i earned you trust, down there in the basement, but all you do is getting all zoomed to extraordinary sizes and then blanking out altogether. the focus is gone, but then the hand reaches out and leads you back into the triangle. i try to clean the air with spit but you don't let me do that for very long. your voice stretches my body into impossible shapes. i get really long before i space out and you get clearer, almost human. my voice sounds weird, like a kiddy voice that's floating through my head, something from the screen inside me. going down the stairs with me. i told you to clean the glass, i can't see anything through that, limbs, muscles, hair, then a soft focus on socks, pants, more screens in the background, a humming sound, then a cat jumps into the foreground and all over you, the camera doesn't turn but there's a sense it's ended right before your eyes. if you could only let it go...if it would only go away...there's nothing i can do about it now.

i fork into a different direction and pick up vague melodies that relate to me when i'm smiley enough. i want to reach them with my hands before the sound fades out and i'm left alone again. turquoise beer bottles follow me and nod before they overtake me, and blow up into gigantic cloud-like shapes, forming things i'd rather not want to signify right now. anything but a smile into the right direction. but as the blood trickles on the basement floor i've lost the connection and swerve into the corner. where were you? did i catch your eye for a second? did you start this noise? i'm no longer married to volume, i've gone over that hill in my head, but were you trying to seduce me once more? i don't know, as you always say.

leave the trail running into the house again and start the car. we're zooming off to find some contrasts. it's for the slideshow later. this house is empty but honest so don't spit now. don't move too much. the house will tell you when to move, it won't be too long. make your face more presentable. don't touch me too much. if you need to do that be careful and don't let it go in too deep. if i can feel it before the time is right i will need to rewind it. and we don't want that right now. can you hear me?

empty heated exchange, meaning nothing, just another wheel rolling over a body. underneath the lucky seat there's a number that morphs into a variety of keys and colours. but only if you know the code. can i trust you? will i colour over later? will i be transparent? will you recognize me? when i lift the stained sheet you will smile right through it before the dog drags it down into the basement.

violent humming over a grey morning, as you slide into bed. have you seen the dust over everything? the spots? this is where you belong. a mountain of dirt. don't feel too bad about it too. if you want to get to the bottom, you need to trust the voice. steps leading upstairs are blocked. windows closing. only a faded melody holds you still. something hairy comes closer. when you ... realize the claws opening up and redesigning your face step out of the enclosure, follow the stream to another nest. be yourself for once. terror holds you still until you realize. it was during a trip like this that you lost your previous reality. but now as it comes back and you feed it back to life it's changed again. you're not so there anymore as if it really was a big bite, and not just a nibble taken out.

the room clears to ancient white, but maybe that's just another way to drape it, push it into druggy confidence. another flight of fancy. nothing so much as a prison in itself. another sip of the wine confirms what you've lost. you need to get out and breathe again, but you've lost the key, you've lost trust in that room that will lead you out when it's still possible. words express deep, dark regrets, though only shallow little lies hide beneath, it's dark and primal greed when it comes down to it. touching you all over now, especially from behind where you can't face it. slowly the knives come out.

as blood streams all over your body and cleanses the flesh the tv goes on and advertises endless abstract lines holding onto a hope that goes ever further to disguise the miserable facts. the subway opens and swallows you. as you go to work, someone whispers in your sleep to switch off the lamp now. let darkness begin, or something. alien sounds wake you up as you progress through the corridor. some production facility. you wave and point to the points of entry and they shake their heads. it's nothing to do with me, they say. it's war but not as you know it.

shake off the sweat too and reach out into the steam. the knife has finally vanished now but you're still downstairs, chained to the wall, with no light in sight, and it feels like you're never going to get out again. "beware of the beast", the advert sings, "it's watching you" then the radio cuts in, and someone finds the right prison frequency to lull you into thinking that the revolution is near. the hands encircle the tree in the middle foreground that will sprout and bounce up through the surface. i want to imagine it getting greener, cleaner, better but all it does is cut out the light further. it confuses you. it will bring confusion.

come back to what you know. you've never been there before, so all it does is giving you a voice that is different to what you've heard before. another layer, another room, morphing into flesh but never realizing its ambition. give back the knives, the claws, the hunger, and all the nervous dances you devised. give back all that you trusted. as i boom ever closer you collapse, and finally we're enlightened.